Today at BlogWorld & New Media Expo, I’m giving a talk on brands and blogs. More specifically, I’m hoping to help bloggers understand the world of marketing a bit more so they can better serve their audience and their own interests by knowing the differences between public relations, advertising, media buying and how they sometimes work together … and sometimes don’t. The end result, I hope, is that bloggers have a stronger understanding of why asking a public relations professional to buy an ad is misdirected, or why asking a big brand’s marketing manager to buy an ad is too.

There are several other points to the talk, one of which is probably a bit hard for many bloggers to hear. As I walk them through the notion that a big company buying an advertisement on their niche blog is highly unlikely, mostly because of audience size compared to traditional media, I will make the statement that blogs really aren’t very attractive to advertisers compared to what they’re used to. Keep in mind, I’m happy to make the argument that a hyper-targeted, niche blog delivers a higher quality audience and one that is provides a potentially more effective media buy, you can’t deny the numbers.

Bloggers often want to know what big companies won’t buy ads on their blogs. It’s simple really. Big brands buy ads through media buying companies or agencies that provide media buying services. These companies aren’t hired unless the brand wants to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising space (inventory) in print, outdoor, television and radio advertising. Large websites with media inventory to sell also factor in. Your blog probably doesn’t. Why? Traditional media buying is based on eyeballs. I worked with one large brand a few years ago that wouldn’t consider a purchase if the audience were less than 500,000 people in a given month.

Granted, this was a big brand, but using that math, let’s look at a top media outlet, a top blog and then a strong-but-not-top blog in a few verticals to see who would qualify:

The Huffington Post and TechCrunch have their mainstream counterparts beat. But those are two of the top 10 blogs in the world. They’re unique animals. The mid-level blogs in each category, as you can see, are no where near the 500,000 person cut-off, nor are they even close to the top blogs in their niche … most of whom aren’t above the half million mark, either. For many of us (me included), to approach a major brand and say, “I’d like for you to advertise on my blog,” is, frankly, laughable.

So a typical blog’s first hurdle is eyeballs. You don’t have enough to attract the major brands in your niche. Typical consumer product goods companies or retail businesses do, however, feature regional or even local marketing teams with budgets for market-specific media. But blogs are all but screwed there because outside of blogs with a geographic focus, you’re not a market-specific media member. You’re a blog. You’re global. The regional folks don’t want to spend money with you because you’re not a regional/local media member. Brands don’t want to spend money with you because you’re not big enough.

What’s a blogger to do?

Well, a few things:

First, and most importantly, understand that the brands are used to doing things the old fashioned way. Write or wrong, they’ve got the money. If you want it, you have to play their game.

Find out who to talk to on both ends … local and brand. Calling the brand manager isn’t going to help you. Calling the media planner/buyer for the brand or their agency will get you farther.

Next, get your ducks in a row and make sure you’re making convincing arguments with facts and figures — and not ones you made up! Show them Compete.com or Quantcast.com, or even Google Analytics numbers. Convince them the audience they want so desperately to reach is at your website and you know how to talk to them. There’s truth to the fact that blog content reaches consumers more effectively than that in an ad, just not that it reaches more of them. Do a great job of selling the ability to move customers to try/choose/consider and you’ll have a better shot of a sale.

Consider partnering with other blogs in your niche to over package deals on multiple sites that reach a similar audience. Ten websites with 25,000 uniques a month equals the brand reaching a quarter of a million people in that time frame. That’s worth most brands paying attention to.

I’d got on a bit about how some (not all … don’t have a hissy just yet) bloggers think their stuff doesn’t stink and they should learn how to behave more professionally, but that’s a whole different blog post. Plus, I can’t spill it all here. Gotta save something for the show, ya know.

Hopefully, those ideas will help you better monetize your blog. Until you get to the point of negotiating with big companies for ad dollars yourself, however, there are a few services you should check out to help you sell ads on your blog:

iSocket – Ad serving network that takes the back-end technical and financial work off your hands. I currently use iSocket on SME.

ShareASale – Affiliate marketing ad server that requires you to pull and drop code for the advertisers you choose to be an affiliate for. I have an affiliate relationship with BlogWorld & New Media Expo through them.

What others do you use or know about. Please share in the comments so your fellow readers can get more ideas on how to drive advertisements to monetize their blogs. And if you have other ideas on how bloggers can network and sell through to big brands, trust me … I’m all ears. The comments are yours.

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About the Author

Jason Falls

Jason Falls is the founder of Social Media Explorer and one of the most notable and outspoken voices in the social media marketing industry. He is a noted marketing keynote speaker, author of two books and unapologetic bourbon aficionado. He can also be found at JasonFalls.com.

Digital marketing is not about designing a website; it is about effectively managing a business and increasing a brand’s relevance with consumers and determining when, how, why, and where they want to engage. digital marketing workshop in chennai

Hey Jason, good point of view. Great brands can not advertise on my blog, because the visitor is much less. They do not want to spend my blog, why coudn’t real income. You should be able to talk to them. Show them some evidence that the content of the blog to reach a targeted audience. I agree with the blog also serves as a partnership.SEO Company India

Watsonrew

This article is very nice this article is talk-able the fashion and the brand and I share with my friend and the family .

Hi jason, great point of view. Big brands cannot advertise on a blog because the visitor is much less. They don’t want to spend on blog because they coudn’t get the right revenue. You should know how to talk to them. Show them some proofs that content of your blog reaches targeted audiences. I agree about the partnership of blog will also work.

This is a great resource, thanks for putting it together for those of us who couldn’t be there to see it in person.

My approach has been to partner with other bloggers and work together as a group to bring the numbers to a brand. While we can’t individually offer 1/2 million eyes, when we put together all our blog audiences, followers, etc. it really adds up. This also allows us to craft our own way to work with brands as opposed to just working in their parameters. While it may not be a fit for all blogs, I’ve found it works really well for my audience and the brands involved.

Hi Jason great post!
I think the best
way to build your brand awareness is to continuously advertise on one place
or to one group of people. Because we all have limited advertising dollars,
we cannot advertise every where. Hence we need to focus building brand
awareness on one place, and then really engage with the people/customers
there.

I’m a bigger fan of the multiple touch points approach. Obviously, when you have budget limitations, you have differences in approach, but I think an advertising campaign needs to integrate with other channels so that every possible touch point your consumer has with your brand is consistent and convincing.

I agree with your post. With that said, I do think brands need to free themselves from the tyranny of CPM. It’s not just about volume of audience; it’s also about quality of audience. Then again, these past 15 years have been pure chaos for advertisers.

I don’t disagree, Christopher. But CPM is the world we live in right now. At least that’s what many advertising decisions are made upon these days. It’ll change, but for now, bloggers need to know impressions/pageviews means something to the people writing the checks.

Instead of looking for advertising, identify companies that could ‘sponsor’ a series of posts.

The way is works is this:

1. they identify the topic (ie something that relates to their product line)
2. you develop the content
3. publish

then… extend the content across other Social Media channels and share the feedback/comments with the client. This works very well if you know how to develop content and repurpose it (in the correct sense) across different channels.

While I do think sponsored posts offer more effective marketing messaging, they also have to be minutely crafted or the audience loses trust in the blogger. The pay-for-play approach is awfully close to the line of what most people think is kosher, you almost have to go out of your way to not connect direct advertising purposes to your efforts.
That said, if the blogger can craft the content in a useful way to the audience and fully disclose the purpose of the relationship and content … your thoughts are certainly valid.

Instead of looking for advertising, identify companies that could ‘sponsor’ a series of posts.

The way is works is this:

1. they identify the topic (ie something that relates to their product line)
2. you develop the content
3. publish

then… extend the content across other Social Media channels and share the feedback/comments with the client. This works very well if you know how to develop content and repurpose it (in the correct sense) across different channels.